A can­cer di­ag­no­sis does not have to be a death sen­tence. Hope and de­spair are two sides of the same coin. It is a heavy bur­den, an in­tense­ly per­son­al and of­ten over­whelm­ing ex­pe­ri­ence.

​Neil "Sha­ka" His­lop had the courage to make pub­lic his per­son­al truth. No hid­ing. No PR spin. Just his raw, unedit­ed truth: "the jour­ney con­tin­ues." A can­cer di­ag­no­sis is bru­tal. The fear, the unadul­ter­at­ed feel­ing of de­spair that re­ver­ber­ates, can­not be ex­plained; it's per­son­al and vis­cer­al. There are two choic­es: give up or fight.

​That's the essence of Sha­ka—his life is an es­say of re­silience, hu­mil­i­ty, and de­ter­mi­na­tion. And per­haps those who need to hear his words will lis­ten and, most im­por­tant­ly, take ac­tion. He is the pub­lic face and voice for those who choose to fight their prostate can­cer bat­tle in pri­vate si­lence. Sha­ka's call mat­ters. He is try­ing to break down the cul­tur­al bar­ri­ers that have cre­at­ed a stig­ma sur­round­ing prostate can­cer.

​It's a pub­lic ser­vice that can save lives by shar­ing his pri­vate and per­son­al bat­tles. He is an ex­am­ple of a high-pro­file Caribbean sport icon who has gone pub­lic, and his choos­ing to do so will do more good than harm. Un­de­tect­ed or de­layed prostate can­cer is a tall moun­tain to climb.

​Many men in Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Caribbean are los­ing the prostate can­cer bat­tle by not giv­ing them­selves a fight­ing chance. If Sha­ka's pub­lic truth mo­ti­vates even one man to get test­ed and be de­tect­ed ear­ly, he has done good.

​Med­ical ex­perts sug­gest can­cer can spend 80% of its life un­de­tectable, then take over the body in months. It takes an av­er­age of ten to 12 years for can­cer to ful­ly de­vel­op in the body, and eight years for a tu­mour to form.

​Ac­cord­ing to re­searchers, most peo­ple have lost a fam­i­ly mem­ber, a friend, or a col­league to can­cer, or know some­one who has.

​With all the ad­vanced tech­nol­o­gy, West­ern med­i­cine is no clos­er to find­ing a cure for can­cer. The can­cer in­dus­try's prof­it is de­rived from treat­ing can­cer, not pre­vent­ing or cur­ing it. Some re­searchers have posit­ed that two out of three can­cer pa­tients will be dead with­in five years of re­ceiv­ing the tra­di­tion­al can­cer pro­to­cols of surgery, ra­dio­ther­a­py, and chemother­a­py.

​Sha­ka's de­ci­sion—no doubt with the full sup­port of his wife De­sha and fam­i­ly—to go pub­lic with his can­cer bat­tle is brave. It's not easy to go pub­lic with such a pri­vate vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty.

​Prostate can­cer is a ma­jor health cri­sis in the Caribbean, with the re­gion hav­ing some of the world's high­est in­ci­dence and mor­tal­i­ty rates, par­tic­u­lar­ly af­fect­ing Afro-Caribbean men due to ge­net­ic pre­dis­po­si­tion, lead­ing to ag­gres­sive forms of the dis­ease of­ten di­ag­nosed late.

​The sports world cre­ates this au­ra of the in­vin­ci­ble glad­i­a­tor and war­rior—a world where vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty and fear are tak­en as weak­ness and ev­i­dence of the lack of the war­rior's spir­it and heart.

​The sta­tis­tics aren't kind to men who have been so­cialised to be apex em­bod­i­ments of dis­tort­ed mas­culin­i­ty. Prostate can­cer is like oth­er can­cers. De­nial is not a treat­ment op­tion with a suc­cess­ful track record.

​In­tru­sive ques­tions and over­ly op­ti­mistic or dis­mis­sive state­ments can un­in­ten­tion­al­ly lead to in­creased dis­tress, a sense of iso­la­tion, and re­luc­tance to seek fur­ther emo­tion­al sup­port.

​Some­one with can­cer doesn't ex­pect any­one to have all the an­swers. They just want to feel heard and sup­port­ed at a time when they may feel like every­thing is spi­ralling out of con­trol.

​Get test­ed; ear­ly de­tec­tion from screen­ing is im­por­tant. Don't wait for symp­toms to ap­pear.